Jews in the old Soviet Union used to tell a bitter joke:
One day in the Moscow Zoo, a little boy leaned too far over the railings of the lion enclosure – and fell into the lion’s cage! As the fierce lion circled the terrified child, a passer-by quickly leapt into the enclosure, swatted the lion out of the way, scooped up the boy, and scrambled with him back up to safety, rescuing the child.
A journalist happened to be passing and saw the whole thing. “That was amazing!” he said to the man: “You’re a hero! I have to write about you – what’s your name?” “Mordechai Greenberg” replied the man. “Ah, a Jew,” muttered the journalist as he turned away.
The next morning, Mordechai’s picture was on the front page of the newspaper – under the headline “Zionist steals lunch from hungry Russian lion”!
Unfortunately this joke has gained new relevance. As a spate of terror attacks has rocked Israel, headlines around the world have twisted facts, in many cases making it seem as if Israelis are the evil perpetrators rather than the victims of violence.
When a baby was murdered and eight people wounded (one who died from her injuries four days later) by a terrorist who rammed his car into a crowd of waiting passengers at a busy Jerusalem train station on October 22, 2014, the prestigious AP news issued a bizarre headline focusing on the driver (whom Israeli police shot as he maneuvered his car to try and hit more passengers): “Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem”. Millions of people around the world read that headline, receiving a subtle blast of anti-Israeli propaganda instead of learning about the actual facts of the horrific assault.
As more reports leaked out and it became impossible to ignore the heavy toll of victims, news outlets around the world incredibly tried to minimize the violence. Many cast doubt on Israeli reports by employing quotation marks around the word “terror”, introducing seeds of doubt, as if to question whether the attack had really happened as Israeli sources claimed. Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, for instance, reported “A three year old infant died in a ‘terror’ attack” (doubt-inducing quotes included).
Some withheld context: AP reported simply “a car hit a train station in East Jerusalem”, without mentioning it was a terror attack targeting Jews. When a similar terror attack a few weeks later claimed the life of a Druze army, Capt. Jidan Assad, a police officer, on November 5, the BBC inexplicably reported “Driver hits pedestrians in Jerusalem”, as if the attack was no more than a routine traffic accident.
Reporting the Har Nof Massacre
Bias against reporting terror attacks against Jews hit a new low a few weeks later, on November 18, when four Jews immersed in morning prayers in a suburban Jerusalem synagogue were hacked to death – as well as a heroic Druze policeman who came to their aid - by terrorists armed with meat cleavers, knives and guns.
Foreign reporters seemed to have a hard a time grasping that Jews had been attacked at all. CNN initially posted a “breaking news” headline: “Israeli… Police Shot, Killed 2 Palestinians”. Subsequent CNN headlines mistakenly reported the massacre as “Deadly Attack on Jerusalem Mosque” and later blandly toned down the carnage: “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians Dead in Jerusalem”. Later in the day, CNN still couldn’t get it right, casting aspersions on accounts of the Israeli police and reporting: “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians, killed in synagogue attack, Israeli police say”.
“There is no reality elsewhere in the world where journalists can report a terror attack in this style… Coverage like this legitimizes the next murder,” protested Yossi Dagan, head of media relations for the Samaria Regional Council in a formal complaint to Israel’s Government Press Office.
While CNN eventually apologized for its initial headline, other outlets headlined the bloody carnage with bizarre wording of their own. The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) stressed the fates of the terrorists (but not their many victims) in its coverage, tweeting: “Jerusalem Police Fatally Shoot 2 After Apparent Synagogue Attack”. An hour after the massacre, when most news services had corrected their most egregious headlines, the prestigious Reuters persisted in casting doubt the entire episode ever happened, insisting on reporting the massacre as a “suspected Palestinian attack”, rather than as an established fact.
Some news outlets tried to introduce the idea that perhaps the synagogue massacre was somehow understandable or even justified. CBS described the suburban synagogue (which is in western Jerusalem, inside the “green line” of Israel’s pre-1967 borders) as “contested religious site”. Fox News reporter Conor Powell described the massacre as “tit for tat violence on both sides”; unable to provide an example of violence directed at Arabs by Jews, he falsely stated that “neither side” was urging calm. (Missing from Fox’s reporting was the background that both Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders had been escalating tensions in Jerusalem in the weeks leading up to the massacre, urging Muslims to “defend” their holy places: a rallying cry that has resulted in Muslim attacks on Jews in the past.)
Why the Distortion
What causes these distorted headlines? Many news outlets seem to cling to a familiar narrative, where Israel always is the aggressor: events where Jews are harmed go against this received wisdom. Sometimes this means whitewashing terrorists or terrorist groups. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, for instance, both Reuters and the AP news agency forbade reporters from using the word “terrorist” to describe the perpetrators. (Reporters were allowed to say only “terror attacks”.) When it comes to Israel, even the most extreme terrorist groups are routinely white-washed. The BBC, for example, discourages its reporters from assigning the label “terrorist” to anti-Israel groups. Extremism – such as Hamas’ commitment not only to Israel’s destruction, but its exhortation to murder Jews – too often gets a free pass because it doesn’t fit the prevailing wisdom of an aggressive Israel and hapless Palestinians.
“Most reporters in Gaza believe their job is to document violence directed by Israel at Palestinian civilians,” recalls Matti Friedman, a former AP correspondent, in Tablet Magazine. “A gap has opened (in Israel) between the way things are and they way they are described.”
He explains how most international news bureaus assign dozens of reporters to Israel, other international locations receive very few or no international journalists assigned to them full-time. (In the case of the AP, over 40 staff are assigned to report on Israel, more than China, Russian, India, or the all the 50 countries in sub-Saharan Africa combined.) Editors “believe Israel to be the most important story on earth, or very close,” and the result is a disproportionate obsession with the Jewish state.
Worse, almost all of this coverage is one-sided, for while criticizing Israel and Israeli society is considered by editors to be interesting and newsworthy, critical coverage of Palestinian political affairs or society is not. “Corruption, for example, is a pressing concern for many Palestinians under the rule of the Palestinian Authority,” Friedman recalls, “but when I and another reporter once suggested an article on the subject, we were informed by the bureau chief that Palestinian corruption was ‘not the story.’ (Israeli corruption was and we covered it at length.)”
Sometimes, this inability to report on the larger picture is due to intimidation on the ground. Inside Gaza, for example, Hamas tightly controls journalistic access; foreign journalists risk their lives if they try independent reporting. Many, lacking language skills and reporting under tight deadlines, rely on local stringers who are often controlled by Hamas. (On August 11, 2014, the Foreign Press Association formally complained of Hamas’ “blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods…against visiting international journalists in Gaza”.)
But the desire to fit the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to go right to the top of major news organizations, too. During the fighting in Gaza in August, 2014, for instance, the AP Jerusalem’s chief news editor wrote a story about corruption inside Hamas and senior AP editors nixed the story, preventing it from ever being published.
Senior editors seem, inexplicably, committed to making, rather than reporting, the news. The Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the New York Times, Jodi Rudoren, for instance, publicly dismissed the Foreign Press Association complaints that Hamas officials were intimidating journalists as “nonsense,” and allowed her paper to use reporters who proclaimed their political biases, including one reporter in Gaza who used a picture of Yassir Arafat as his picture on Facebook.
Matti Friedman, the former AP reporter, notes the far-reaching effects of such biased coverage. “When the people responsible for explaining the world to the world, journalists, cover the Jews’ war as more worthy of attention than any other, when they portray the Jews of Israel as the party obviously in the wrong, when they omit all possible justifications for the Jews’ actions and obscure the true face of their enemies, what they are saying to their readers—whether they intend to or not—is that Jews are the worst people on earth. The Jews are a symbol of the evils that civilized people are taught from an early age to abhor. International press coverage has become a morality play starring a familiar villain.”
What You Can Do
Here are three ways we each can help counter bias and challenge outrageous headlines.
- Educate yourself. Read Israeli magazines and newspapers; enjoy Israeli books and films. Perhaps even plan a visit to the Jewish state. The more comfortable you are talking about Israel the better equipped you’ll be at challenging biases and misleading reportage.
- Don’t be afraid to speak out. Newspapers and news agencies respond to readers’ comments. When you see an example of bias, take the time to make a call or send an e-mail to say how you feel. Organizations such as www.honestreporting.com and www.camera.org can help you formulate your thoughts and comments so they’ll be heard.
- Cultivate your own pride. There’s not better advocate for the Jewish state than someone who is proud to be Jewish. Reach out to your fellow Jews and Jewish community to gain knowledge and support as you speak out for Israel and against biased reporting.
Graphic credit: LegalInsurrection.com
(17) Gail, December 21, 2017 7:58 PM
Deport dishonest reporters
Israel is not required to allow so many reporters to remain in Israel.
Israel should revoke work permits of news agencies that misrepresent the facts of attacks should have their reporters expelled. Dishonest reporters should have their Israeli work permits revoked.
All reporters who are stationed in Israel should be required to take history lessons, to visit archaeological sites, and attend tours of Israel by Israeli guides who are loyal to Israel.
Reporters should be required to stay in Sderot as their headquarters.
News reports should use Israeli names for places.
While the three “What You Can Do” suggestions are good and essential, their impact is like shooting darts against a field of machine guns. Each dart is important, but we still have to cut down the world-wide barrage of constant lies.
Self education coupled with actively responding to dishonest news reports is effective. (e.g., www.honestreporting.com)
Israel must reduce foreign correspondent density and demand honest coverage. These should reduce the dishonest reports sent out of Israel.
(16) Anonymous, December 9, 2014 11:39 PM
spiritual
The illogic of all this shows that this is all a spiritual battle.
(15) Beverly Kurtin, December 9, 2014 6:43 AM
Target
I am looking for a pin that has a target on it. It should be large enough for people to see and ask what it means. I will reply that I AM A TARGET. If they ask for who? I will answer HAMAS and other terrorist groups in theMorning iddle East.
Hamas wants to annihilate the tiny State of Israel and ALL Jews around the world.
I will carry some printed matter with me showing the TRUTH ABOUT how Israel is misrepresented in our media. Perhaps that will get some straightforward information out.
Failing that I will print a target on the back of my wheelchair. And do the same as if I were walking, a difficulty for me as I can no longer walk more than a few feet at a time.
The med I used to use has been priced out of reach. The insurance companies are stripping Medicare Advantage programs of affordable drug prices. What was an $8 copasy is noe a $95 copay with a deductable of $165.
Unless there is a way to afford the med, my heart will give out.
But I will fight for our state as long as I can.
(14) Mr. Cohen, December 9, 2014 2:12 AM
NYT anti-Israel Character Assassination
Another New York Times anti-Israel Character Assassination:
http://tabletmag.com/scroll/187518/rolling-stone-apologized-will-the-times
PS: Stop being your own enemy!
Stop buying the New York Times
and NEVER go back to it ever again!
(13) Baruch, December 8, 2014 8:46 PM
Do it
Most Jews I know support these news outlets with subscription to virulent lyrics anti-Israel newspapers like the New York Times and cable subscriptions to CNN, BBC and, yes, even AL Jazeera . The justification is usually great writing or reporting. Well, if WE tell the best journalists we will continue to support them as long as their slander is well-written, is it any wonder the news keeps getting worse? Cancel your subscriptions and change the channel. Life does start with the basics.
(12) Jill, December 8, 2014 3:01 PM
Who owns whom
Who owns the media? I stand to be corrected, but I've read that most of the large media houses are owned by or are under the strong influence of the Muslim world.
(11) Mika Krok, December 8, 2014 11:45 AM
Unbelievable how the antissemitism is present , Why jews have to be always, eternally be the guilty ones for everything.
(10) Albert Hache, December 8, 2014 4:10 AM
Our safest and only refuge
In these perplexing times, when the victim is too often perceived as the culprit and the culprit is being excused and pitied, the new expressions of anti-Semitism are so appallingly irrational in their justification, that one is left to wonder if G-D is not testing the Jews and their trust in Him. Death and destruction being unavoidable, in the end, it s essential to remember that He is the ultimate and only refuge. Being a Jew, if one is to be the chosen people, is to be more aware than anyone of this fact and to suffer evil without hatred in one's heart, while carrying a big stick, of course.
(9) Mr. Cohen, December 8, 2014 2:54 AM
how YOU can help
Please help to counter anti-Israel bias by
linking your Jewish web site to this article.
Thank you!
(8) Gary Katz, December 7, 2014 11:08 PM
Good article, Yvette!
It's not enough to see this stuff and get mad. We should always complain. Let the media know we're not putting up with their bologna (for want of a stronger term)!
Sandy, December 8, 2014 3:43 PM
Exactly and thank you
We need to speak up and right in their faces and in every medium. What the heck is this? We are being murdered and victimized and need to announce to the world that we are not going to take it anymore. Every word and act against us needs to be shouted to the world and then shout to them again that we will return an eye for an eye. Enough is enough. Don't we see that the world wants to destroy Israel because they have the nerve to defend themselves? Well, now we need to tell them there will be an offensive on our part for every one of theirs. Enough. Pray for Israel and loudly speak up.
(7) Gabrielle, December 7, 2014 9:20 PM
Israelis have to do more to counter the lies
I have written numerous letters-to-the-editor about these distortions and often lies, and rarely are they published. Israel has forged ahead in so many fields, like technology, medical research, environmental research, but Israel has neglected it's PUBLIC RELATIONS. The government should set up a department of public relations where Israeli journalists could flood the world's newspapers with free articles and TV stations with videos of the real truths in Israel.
(6) Barry, December 7, 2014 8:41 PM
It has reached a point that the News media is affecting the way the world looks at Israel and its supporters. The way they twist the news around to make one feel sorry for the Terrorists, yet hate Israellis injured at a terrorist attack is sickening to me.
Something must be done by Israel to play the same game because it works! People alweays feel sorry for the underdog so Israel shoulkd do everything it can to have better public relations with the world. Israel is the underdog -- a tiny nation against the entire Middle East.
We have always used our intelligence as Jews and we need to use it now concerning the way the world perceives Israel.
(5) Judith, December 7, 2014 7:11 PM
Would like to believe it makes a difference.
Been commenting on events reported with bias against Israel by pressing the dislike button and stating facts to counteract the lies and distortions. It scares me how much ignorance and hate is out there among the journalists and the commentators. By now I feel that my comments make no difference anymore. I support "stand-with-us", hasbarah, and when I see the overwhelming amount of anti-Israel bias, I get depressed. What's the point, "Hater's gonna hate".
(4) Noa, December 7, 2014 7:04 PM
More is needed
Great article indeed but more is needed. We need to know why are media so biased? Ideology and anti-Semitism are not enough as an explanation. What about money? I have heard that the Spanish El Pais is funded by Arab money. We need more of this kind of information.
(3) Avi Goldstein, December 7, 2014 6:02 PM
agence france presse
A leading offender is Agence France Presse. AFP routinely distorts Middle East coverage, yet is highly placed in search engines. An example is the repeated use of the murder by Israelis of an Arab boy as the starting point of the violence this fall, ignoring the murder of the three Israeli boys that preceded it.
(2) Rena Groot, December 7, 2014 4:57 PM
Excellent article
I recently spoke to a man who believes all the world's woes are because of Israel and those who support her. I spent hours writing emails trying to refute his distorted perceptions. When someone buys into a lie it seems nearly impossible to break them out of it. How sad that anti-Israel propoganda has infiltrated the media and caused such a distortion of truth. How horrible that people mindlessly believe news reports without seeing the bias. Thankfully, God knows the truth and He will bring justice for His people.
(1) Anonymous, December 7, 2014 3:25 PM
Great article
Thanks Yvette for the great article --- touche